Backlash Ends Sexpo Plans
Lyn Humphreys – Taranaki Daily News
15 September 2009
Boobs on Bikes and the Erotica Lifestyles Expo are not coming to New Plymouth this year following a public backlash.
“It was going to happen but with all the controversy we’ve been copping and all the negatives from everywhere, it’s not happening now,” Erotica’s owner and porn mogul Steve Crow said from Auckland yesterday.
Steve Crow and his Inglewood brother, David Crow, bought the New Plymouth and Districts RSA at Strandon and also bailed out the debt-ridden club last year.
The two are planning an extensive development for the site, named the Te Ara project.
Amid negative reaction, Steve Crow last month promised the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce that the site would not be converted into a brothel, strip club, adult shop or “anything at all to do with the sex industry”.
But Mr Crow’s Erotica lifestyles expo website advertises a three-day expo at New Plymouth’s Te Ara at 434 Devon St East for $20 a head in November. When contacted by the Taranaki Daily News yesterday, Mr Crow admitted that the expo, which would have been at Te Ara, included strip shows.
However, recent bad publicity and a public backlash from New Plymouth people have caused him to pull the pin.
“I just think it’s going to backfire if we do,” Mr Crow said.